I have successfully avoided being sucked into Harry Potter fandom for many years now...but my resolve has been wavering. Before my fellow Muggles cry out in despair that they've lost another nonconformist warrior to Pottermania, take heart: I am still deflecting the bulk of those dark possession-minded curses aimed in my direction. I am, however, more interested in this franchise/phenomenon than I was before and for this I blame four people:
Susan. For it was she who dragged me to Order of the Phoenix and then read Deathly Hallows beside me on the beach as I attempted to read something heavier --well, 'heavier' in the higher brow sense, not as in weight. Those Potter books are huge. Susan had the nerve to enjoy her book more than I enjoyed mine.
Alfonso Cuarón. For it was he who managed to make the first (and still best) Potter adaptation, The Prisoner of Azkaban. It felt like an actual honest-to-God movie after two dull books-on-celluloid jobs. He's a powerful wizard.
Imelda Staunton. For she was Vera Drake and now she is Dolores Umbridge who cursed me to incessantly think about pink
Myself. For it was I who got jealous of Susan's Hallows enthusiasm and picked up a copy of Half Blood Prince to read at the beach the following weekened (I figured starting there I'd pick up where I left off cinematically. I'd read Sorceror's Stone and Chamber of Secrets years ago but gave up on the series when Christopher Columbus finished boring me to tears)
So here we are now. The Potter maniacs are finished reading Deathly Hallows and I've finished reading Half Blood Prince. And, you know, I'll just say it: it was a pretty good yarn. I still feel that Rowling isn't that great of a writer but I do give her props for imagination and plotting --she sure can sustain a narrative. I'll never be completely won over because good vs. evil dynamics without gray areas bore me (Slytherin people are evil. Gryffindor people are good. Got it years ago. zzzz) and what's more --sorry Baby Jesus & Buffy-- stories where only one person "the chosen one" can save us all (The Matrix, Highlander, a lot of sci-fi/fantasy stories) usually irritate me. I guess I'm more of an ensemble man. I've never understood exactly why people love "chosen one" stories so much nor why so few writers dare to color outside those lines. It feels dehumanizing to me when you know that every character but one in any given narrative is expendable. Why place all the eggs in one basket?
One tangential thing that's bugging me about Order of the Phoenix: Why does everyone find that final magical battle so thrilling? I keep reading how wondrous it is. To me it was like an upscale version of magic throwdowns from cheap B movies like The Covenant. CG balls and rays of light just don't excite me all that much. Isn't there a more interesting way to film witchcraft? I expect the finale of Half Blood Prince will be similarly colorful yet physically vague with no real sense of danger. That's a shame. [see Lord of the Rings for an example of how to mix magic into battles where every blow stings and every spell hits like a thunderbolt]
Despite my wobbly nonconversion, I'm looking forward to the next Harry Potter movie (there's a first time for everything) though I'm disappointed that creepy/giggly Helena Bonham-Carter will continue to have a miniscule role as Bellatrix LeStrange (like Voldemort she's more talked about than truly involved). Maybe the expanded roles for Alan Rickman as Snape and Michael Gambon as Dumbledore will help it along. I'm also wary of how Half Blood Prince will transfer since it's so frequently interrupted with Voldemort's backstory... it could get very Hannibal Rising up in there, you know?
Feel free to share your Potter conversion OR resistance stories in the comments. And if you know of any great genre stories that ignore that hoary neo-christian salvation myth "chosen one" angle altogether, please recommend them in the comments.